Perspective at Village Inn's Ladies' Room

There is something that I've been mulling over for a couple of weeks now, which is pretty new to me as I used to just blurt things out as they came to me without fully thinking through what it was I was saying or trying to say.  I was having coffee with a friend of mine and we were having one of those really great conversations where you are completely engaged in the dialogue and it is uplifting dialogue and you are learning a lot from it.  We were also laughing a lot which is always a nice thing to do.

I don't even fully remember what we were talking about, but what I do remember was visiting the ladies' room and having one of those thoughts that seemingly come out of nowhere and have massive impact of yourself as you know you.  Oddly enough, all those kinds of moments that I just described always seem to happen while I'm in a bathroom, or while I'm brushing my teeth.  

I work for a law office and so I am used to being analytical about every major piece of information that comes in to my hands.  The type of family law we primarily do is the kind that involves a lot of reading between the lines and asking the difficult questions to the stuff that doesn't add up right (yes, there is a kind of math I do relatively well with, it just doesn't involve numbers).  I analyze everything.  Outside of my employment, as an English major... I'm always analyzing the text and trying to figure out what is beneath the suggestion that are the words on the paper.  

While this analytic nature works well in my scholarly and professional worlds, it doesn't work well at all in my interpersonal world... in fact, it's been quite damaging to that world.  In the scholarly and professional worlds where I'm analytic and questioning the texts I'm given, it works because I'm supposed to find the loop-holes and pieces that contradict one another and I'm awesome at that; I've protected children from some pretty horrible situations because of my ability to really know what their parent's are saying without saying.  

But, you see, in my interpersonal world it's different.  What I learned at the Village Inn ladies' room... the thought that came out of nowhere and left me dazed and alarmed like I'm pretty sure a 2x4 to the head would impact me was that... analyzing your interpersonal relationships... it doesn't work.  You aren't supposed to look for loop-holes or confused stories when they really just don't exist in the first place.  And when you start doing that... you are weaving your own insecurities into the actions of another person.  That's the big thing I learned.  It is no secret that in my past I've been traumatically hurt.  And that word, "traumatically"... yeah, it's not an exaggeration.  

All of you out there reading this blog faithfully know of a small portion of the traumatic hurt I've faced.  But, the truth is that what you know is only the tip of that cliche iceberg; it's the result of a part of the underlying and ever invasive emotional injury.  Sheesh, that sounds so dramatic.  Maybe you all already knew this simple fact that when we analyze the actions of other's and, in doing so, only ever see the things that don't add up even if those things are creations of our own beliefs, and not actually truth... then ultimately all we are doing is weaving our insecurities in the actions of everything around us.  It's hard to trust anything when you live your life that way.  And I get that now.  For whatever reason that truth has evaded me for the longest of times, but I get it now.

That's not to say that there are people out there that don't have cause for suspicion.  But, when you place that suspicion on to someone who has only ever shown you kindness and respect and purity of love... and you let the thoughts of other's just as distrustful as you assist in tightening the weave of your own individual brand of insecurity... then it's not good.  I don't fully know what this post is.  I'm just excited about the moment of clarity I received in the ladies' room of Village Inn.  That sounds weird, but it's true.

If you could feel the quiet joy in my heart right now then I think it would explain it perfectly.  For as important as it is to ask the questions and get the answers, and be suspicious of people when it's necessary, there is no balance in doing that with everyone you meet.  Just as there is no balance in just existing in a moment that feels wrong but you don't dare understand why.  Analyzing is red, and turning a blind eye is blue... but trusting and believing in good when you've witnessed it time and again in a person, especially when that person answered the difficult questions... that's yellow.  And, yellow is joy; yellow is warmth, yellow is honesty, yellow is humility.  Yellow teaches you to imagine and believe that life and people can be good.  Yellow is your instinct telling you that it's either right or wrong, it's that part of you that knows without having to be encouraged by others.  Yellow is balance and having hope in faith is yellow.  Balance is patient and balance is peace in the instinctual.  Balance is a delicate truth that can come to us in the most unusual of places, but it comes to us regardless, even if it is the ladies' room of a family restaurant.